How to Write an Office Manager Cover Letter

An office manager is key to the success of a business – they ensure the office functions efficiently.

What Are the Roles and Responsibilities of an Office Manager?

The office manager role is multi-faceted, suitable for you if you can work well under pressure, as well as be unphased by taking on multiple tasks or roles.

You could be responsible for:

• Administration of the office, from the stationery to the lights
• Managing a team of administrative or support staff
• Organizing events
• Dealing with correspondence
• Processing invoices
• Resolving internal and external complaints
• You may need to act as a first aider

An office manager may work alongside other teams such as finance, HR and marketing or, if the business is smaller, you may take on such duties.

Essentially, you may end up being responsible for all the back-office organization. Therefore, this role requires a wide variety of skills rather than, necessarily, specific qualifications.

What Is an Office Manager Cover Letter?

If you apply for an office manager role, the application is commonly made by submitting your resume and cover letter to the business’s hiring manager.

Depending on the business’s size, you should bear in mind that this may also be the business owner.

The cover letter is essentially your sales pitch. You will need to convince the hiring manager that they should meet you for an interview and, ultimately, hire you for the role.

It is important not to see the cover letter as a mere formality. You have one page, or around five paragraphs, to grab their attention. Do not waste them.

Hiring managers will be reading multiple letters and resumes, possibly even hundreds, and can spot a cut-and-paste job immediately.

It is easy to dash off any old note. It is also easy to do yourself a disservice this way, failing to demonstrate the important office manager skills of communication and correspondence.

As office manager, you will likely oversee relationships with suppliers, tradespeople, as well as employees. Therefore, you must be able to sell yourself and the business well and this needs to be demonstrated from the get-go, in your cover letter.

What Should a Great Office Manager Cover Letter Include?

To write one, you must first consider what a cover letter for an office manager role should include. It sells your skills and personality.

As your role will involve administrative and logistical tasks, your cover letter is your first chance to demonstrate these.

At the very least, the entire letter should be correctly addressed to the right person, be thoroughly checked for spelling and grammar and your addressing and sign off should be both correct and up-to-date.

There are no specific academic requirements or qualifications required for all office manager roles. However, check the job description carefully for any essential or desirable qualifications or knowledge this business is looking for.

You might find a degree is requested or perhaps a certain number of years’ experience as a managing assistant.

They may not be set in stone, being more desired rather than essential traits, so it can be worth applying regardless. But, where your qualification and knowledge do match the job description, highlight this.

You should carefully consider the business to which you apply and the skills it may require. These might be set out in the job description but there are also universal skills you should be aiming to demonstrate, at all levels of experience.

Depending on the level of the role you are applying for, different things should be emphasized:

Entry-Level Office Manager Roles

While some office manager roles require prior experience, others are suitable for those looking for the first step in their career.

These are more likely to be smaller businesses where there will be a chance to build your role alongside the business.

In these sorts of roles, you will likely need to turn your hand to a wide variety of tasks. Use your cover letter to demonstrate how you can manage a calendar, book meetings, deal with invoicing, understand Excel or other computer software, and that you have an excellent can-do attitude.

There will be some skills that are more important for certain business areas over others, so see if any are requested in the job advertisement or description.

If all your experience is related to school activities, entry-level office manager roles are still within your reach, provided you can effectively draw our your transferable skills.

For example:

During my time as sorority chair, I led monthly meetings and managed a team, including membership and fundraising leads. We raised a record $100k to provide food and clothes for children in our neighborhood. We campaigned on a variety of issues, taking forward those raised by the students, including commissioning and implementing an upgrade of the school registration app to work cross-platform.

You are likely (although not always) to be working with a small team who are older than you, so demonstrating that you can make decisions and follow through on them is a must.

Lastly, it is also crucial to demonstrate a willingness to learn by talking about skills you have developed to better yourself in your prior roles and activities.

Junior Office Manager Roles

After you have some experience, you might apply for roles where the office manager works alongside other professionals and has more specific areas of responsibility, or you may be looking to move to a bigger business.

Either way, you will want to demonstrate your experience and relevant qualifications, such as First Aid certificates or if you were the lead user of a particular software.

Likewise, if you led the implementation of certain changes or system installations, such as an open door policy, you should be highlighting this and the positive results.

For example:

At Pickle HQ I spent three years as Office Manager, during which time my improvements to the calendar and booking system, plus the implementation of a new client booking app and text message reminder service, ensured that cross-booked rooms reduced to 0 and missed client meetings reduced to 0.01% (from 0.20%). This, in turn, led to increased revenue of 15% YOY.

How to Write Your Office Manager Cover Letter

To help you understand how to write a cover letter for an office management position, here is a breakdown of each paragraph.

There are also office manager cover letter examples for you to draw inspiration from.

First Paragraph – Introduction

This is your first opportunity to demonstrate two things: attention to detail and ability to communicate, both essential for any office manager.

Address the cover letter personally to the hiring manager who will read it. It might be spelled out in the job advert or perhaps you will have to do some digging.

But it is worth spending time getting it right, as it shows you have done personalized research.

Go straight for their name – only add titles if the hiring manager described themself with one.

You then want to briefly introduce yourself, if necessary, and make it clear which role you are applying for. Then you can demonstrate some knowledge about the business, making it clear that this is a bespoke office manager cover letter.

For example:

Dear Anne Blue,

I am pleased to apply for the role of office manager at ABC. I have spent the last five years working at ZY and have been hoping ABC would open a West Coast office, as I think my skills complement the outstanding work currently delivered by the New York team.

Second Paragraph

Your second paragraph should show why you are a good fit for the role and that you match the requirements.

Remember that you will also be attaching your resume so you only need to highlight the important parts from it, not regurgitate it completely.

You can also use this paragraph to demonstrate what you know about the business or the background of the company, to allow you to show specific relevant experience to them.

For example, if the role you are applying for involved supporting and lifting the sales team:

Over the past five years, I have led a team of seven staff, including junior support staff and a marketing manager, to support the sales team to deliver exceptional sales results. By making small changes, such as cleaning data, seeking and listening to customer feedback, revitalizing the sales reward scheme, and carrying out quantitative research on behalf of the sales team, revenue rose by 20%.

The success of the team has been due to both my management skills – in which I take a person-centered approach to building a successful team who thrive – as well as my first-rate organizational skills in delivering ongoing sales support.

Third Paragraph

This is where you want to show any managerial qualifications and demonstrate your achievements.

If you have a strong range of achievements and skills, it can be appropriate to use a bullet point list and any appropriate acronyms.

Refer back to the job description and connect your past accomplishments with the requirements listed.

For example:

I majored in business management and have spent the past decade delivering outstanding results in ZY, winning Manager of the Year in 2019. I worked my way up to managing the admin and support functions, as well as undertaking advanced training to act as first aid officer.

Fourth Paragraph

Here is the time to sell what you can do for the company in question.

Bearing in mind your knowledge and skills, spend time researching what the business’ goals are for the next year and offer ways you can aid them.

Or seek out customer feedback and see if there is anything you could exploit as an opportunity.

For example:

Fig Ltd. desire to increase their pro-bono work. To do that, they will need an exceptional office manager who can both increase awareness of the good work already done but, more importantly, streamline systems and procedures to free-up fee-earner hours by reducing the time spent on admin. I have delivered on both of these tasks in my current role, as well as automating the production of routine correspondence, which led to increased time to spend on high-value work.

Fifth Paragraph

Finally, you will need a call to action, then your sign-off.

Keep the call to action simple and clear, avoiding clichés where possible.

The action is for the recruiter to consult your resume and, ideally, offer you an interview (here are some interview preparation tips).

Final impressions are almost as important as first impressions. Leave the cover letter on a cheerful, upbeat, positive note and use a classic sign-off.

Tip: ‘Yours sincerely’ is used when the addressee’s name was used, ‘Yours faithfully’ is used otherwise.

For example:

I have enclosed a copy of my resume with further details of my academic background and employment history. I would welcome the opportunity to talk with you in person about the job position and I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Yours sincerely,

Miranda Name

Top Tips

• Provide evidence for your admin, organizational and communication skills and make sure the letter is addressed to the correct person with perfect spelling and grammar. Otherwise, you will undercut your skills.

• Thoroughly consider the job description to ensure you address all of them in your letter.

• Look forward to what you can do for the business in the future, as well as saying what you have already done.

• Reference specific keywords and mirror phrasing used in the cover letter – the company may be using an automated applicant tracking system (ATS), so doing so can help your cover letter pass through it.

Full Example Office Manager Cover Letter

Dear Anne Blue,

I am pleased to apply for the role of office manager at ABC. I have spent the last five years working at ZY and have been hoping ABC would open a West Coast office, as I think my skills complement the outstanding work currently delivered by the New York team.

I currently work as an office manager in a busy global manufacturing business, ZY. Over the past five years, I have led a team of seven staff, including junior support staff and a marketing manager, to support the sales team to deliver exceptional sales results.

By making small changes, such as cleaning data, seeking and listening to customer feedback, revitalizing the sales reward scheme, and carrying out quantitative research on behalf of the sales team, revenue rose by 20%. The success of the team has been due to both my management skills – in which I take a person-centered approach to building a successful team that thrives – as well as my first-rate organizational skills in delivering ongoing sales support.

I majored in business management and have spent the past decade delivering outstanding results in ZY, winning Manager of the Year in 2019. I worked my way up to managing the admin and support functions, as well as undertaking advanced training to act as first aid officer.

Further highlights of my experience include:

• Streamlining administrative operations for a dynamic global senior management team, including scheduling, diary management and operational support.

• Staff recruitment, onboarding and training, including delivering relocation packages.

• Invoicing and general office administration, including compliance with state and federal safety regulations.

• Event planning, including organizing and hosting annual company internal awards ceremony and the organization QW Global Awards’ sponsorship.

ABC desire to increase their global awareness and sales position with their new office and to do that, they will need an exceptional office manager to lead the work on the West Coast. I am confident my skills as office manager will increase awareness of the good work already done but, more importantly, open an efficient new office with streamlined systems and procedures to create a highly functioning sales team. In my current role, I have delivered both these tasks, as well as automating the production of routine correspondence and training, which led to a better functioning team and increased time spent delivering high-value work.

I am confident my additional strengths will bring success to the new ABC office. The chance to offer more insight would be most welcome.

I have enclosed a copy of my resume with further details of my academic background and employment history. I would welcome the opportunity to talk with you in person about the job position and I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Yours sincerely,

Miranda Name

Final Thoughts

A high-quality, bespoke cover letter for an office manager role will make you stand out as an applicant. Recruiters can easily identify cut-and-paste jobs, which they disregard.

With only a few short paragraphs available, make your points succinctly and relevant to the job description. Leave the recruiter feeling positive about getting in touch with you to arrange the next steps.